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Embedding ApacheDS as a Web Application
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This site was updated for ApacheDS 1.5.5.
Maven archetype depends on the current trunk.
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My initial aim was to demonstrate embedding ApacheDS in a very simple, but nevertheless impressive way. I thought about embedding the server in Apache Tomcat first. But then I got a better plan: Creating a standard web application which wraps ApacheDS and can be deployed on any compliant application server. ApacheDS in a war-archive!
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Although the concepts depicted below apply to all version of ApacheDS (even before 1.0), the configuration for starting and stopping the embedded server uses the style introduced with ApacheDS 1.5.
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5. Be sure that you use this version of the server, or a later one.
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Although it works well, please note that this is just an example on how to embed ApacheDS in an application! If you plan to run the server as LDAP production system, this is not the first option to consider. Some more steps have to be done, especially in the area of configuration.
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The ApacheDS core is comprised of JavaBeans components, and can easily be instantiated started and stopped with simple Java code. This is done by the following listener.
The class StartStopListener implements ServletContextListener and therefore contains the following two life cycle methods:
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The method contextDestroyed simply stops the protocol and shuts down the service.
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Deployment descriptor
In order to execute the listener code, the class has to be defined in the deployment descriptor of a web application, as depicted below:
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Packaging and Deploying the WebApp
A standard web archive (war-File) is needed in order to deploy the application to a servlet container. The easiest way to create such a web archive including all dependencies is to use an Maven archetype we provide.
Creating the WebApp using the ApacheDS Maven Archetype
We assume you have Java Subversion and Maven 2.0.9 installed on your system.
To use the archetype you'll need to check it out and install it to your local repository:
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Then change to your preferred location to create the new project and execute following command:
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Then change to the created directory and run the following command:
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This creates an ApacheDS.war file below the target folder.
Run on embedded Jetty
The fastest way to run the web application is to use the Maven Jetty plugin:
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The sample servlet 'RootDseServlet' is available at the following URL:
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true
Deployment descriptor
In order to execute the listener code, the class has to be defined in the deployment descriptor of a web application, as depicted below:
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
"http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">
<web-app>
<display-name>ApacheDS embedded in a WebApp</display-name>
<description>
A simple yet portable way to run ApacheDS within a servlet
container
</description>
<listener>
<listener-class>
org.apache.directory.samples.embed.webapp.StartStopListener
</listener-class>
</listener>
</web-app>
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A standard web archive (war-File) is needed in order to deploy the application to a servlet container. The Resources area at the end of this page provides a zip-File which contains the file structure. A build script for Apache Ant is included as well.
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The build script assumes that you have ApacheDS 1.5.4 5 and Tomcat 6.0.18 installed locally; it uses and (in the case of ApacheDS) copies the necessary files from their lib directories to the lib directory of the web application. You will likely want to adjust the installation directories defined in the build.xml file.
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One option is a command line tool like ldapsearch (see ApacheDS Basic User's Guide for details on how to connect to ApacheDS with such tools in general). Here is an example how to connect as administrator (simple bind) and fetch the Root DSE of our embedded ApacheDS instance:
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Another choice are graphical LDAP clients (see ApacheDS Basic User's Guide for details on how to connect to ApacheDS with such tools in general).
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- Apache Tomcat 5.5.20 and 6.0.18 (Homepage)
- IBM WebSphere Application Server 6.1 (Homepage)
- Jetty 6.1.0 (Homepage)
Here is a screen shot of the web based administration console of WebSphere Application Server 6.1 with the ApacheDS.war deployed and running, no changes in the deployment archive were needed.
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To finish with, here is a simple example on how to access the server internallythe server internally (Note: the servlet was already created by the maven archetype).
The following servlet, which will be deployed together with the other two classes class in the web archive, connects to ApacheDS directly, i.e. via the internal JNDI provider. No network access is needed. In the doGet method it performs a search operation against the Root DSE of the server, as the examples above do.
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In order to make the servlet available to clients, it has to be declared in the deployment descriptor web.xml, here are the additions (a servlet named RootDseServlet for the class above, and a URL mapping)
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Redeploy the web application. If you point to your tomcat server with the appropriate URL (http://localhost:8080/ApacheDS/RootDse
), you'll see the content of the Root DSE as depicted below:
Generate Maven Project
To get the sample code you can either generate a maven project using the apacheds-webapp archetype ortrue
Download the source code
StartStopListener.java (Step 1)
RootDseServlet.java (Step 2)
web.xml
ApacheDSWebApp.zip all sources including a build script for Apache Ant (build.xml)
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